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A wealthy financial trader has succeeded in her appeal against a ruling that half her fortune should go to her ex-husband.

The ex-husband and wife – Robin and Julie Sharp – divorced in 2014. Both are in their 40s. They had been together for six years, initially living together before marrying. They had no children.

Julie Sharp pursued a successful career as a financial trader specialising the energy market, eventually making close to £7 million via a large salary and significant bonuses. Her husband, meanwhile, worked in IT and earned less, before taking voluntary redundancy.

They enjoyed two homes and a luxurious lifestyle before the relationship broke down and the husband moved out.

In November 2015 their divorce came before Sir Peter Singer, who ordered a ‘clean break’ – i.e. a settlement with no ongoing obligations from one party to the other. Mr Sharp would receive no less than £2,737,000, or precisely 50 per cent of the total matrimonial assets.

But Mrs Sharp was unhappy with the ruling and launched an appeal, arguing at a hearing in February that an equal division of assets in this case was unfair. The couple had never merged their finances she insisted, and her husband had claimed he was not interested in her money.

Meanwhile, Mr Sharp said he had earned his fair share by managing the couple’s two homes.

The Court has just released its decision. In a detailed ruling, Lord Justice McFarlane examined a number of legal precedents regarding the division of assets and stressed the difficulty of bringing these into alignment and reaching a conclusion in the case. He explained:

“The length of this judgment is an indication both of the potential importance of the point at issue for the discrete cohort of cases to which it may relate and of the measure of difficulty that I have encountered in resolving upon the correct way forward.”

Nevertheless he eventually concluded that:

“In the present case the husband made no contribution to the source of the wife’s bonuses and this is not a case where, save in the final year, the husband is said to have contributed more to the home life or welfare of the family than the wife. This case is, therefore, a ‘non-business partnership, non-family asset case’ where the bulk (indeed effectively all) of the property has been generated by the wife.”

As a result:

“…where both spouses have largely been in full-time employment and where only some of their finances have been pooled… fairness may require a reduction from a full 50% share or the exclusion of some property from the 50% calculation.”

The Judge therefore ordered a new settlement, in which the husband would receive one of the couple’s two homes, along with an additional lump sum of £900,000.

Stowe Family Law Senior Solicitor Graham Coy said:

“This was an exception to the general rule that assets are divided equally only because the marriage lasted just four and a half years; there were no children; both parties worked for much of the marriage; and to an extent they kept their finances separate.”

He continued:

“The case demonstrates a number of important points. We see that husbands and wives are treated in the same way and that fairness is still a guiding principle, although it is near nigh impossible to give clear guidelines as to what fairness means precisely as every case is different. Nonetheless it is clearer than it was that the length of a marriage, especially when there are no children, is of real importance but probably only where there are significant assets.”

Comments(3)

Part of me is happy that men can now be gold diggers as well but it is a pretty pure example of how ridiculous our current law is. She has worked for 20+ years to build up her wealth and they have a relatively short marriage with no children and somehow he’s entitled to half of her wealth.

In Scotland as I understand it there would be a separation of marital and non marital assets so whatever she had before marriage which was presumably a fair amount would be ring fenced and then they split whatever was earned during the marriage which seems fair. If there were children involved and there were fewer assets then that to me can be the only reason why you should divert from the Scottish way.

This just shows the just like ex fathers who have been decimated of financial penalty and life style and earnings find the ex Mother is bleeding about her share to the ex husband with no children…
So it just showed how lying ex mother’s can take as much as she wants get paid for and gain the house because of children but in this case she fought for less payment to the ex partner..This seem typical when it never went her way…
So now the Clean Break has been dished out it all over..
Just shows how the law can cater for the less contribution but still in this example he got a house.and a large sum…
Cracking I say….haha cuts both ways…pity the law don’t see it that way but is this slowly turning for high profile cases without children…Interesting.

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